In general, many industries specify component requirements which are then made available to various potential manufacturers. For example, in the telecommunications industry, cordless telephones require duplexers with certain characteristics and design tolerances. The manufacturers then attempt to design and manufacture the component, e.g. the duplexer, with the required specifications at the lowest cost. Every manufacturers' components vary in design, acceptable tolerances and cost. Moreover, components obtained from the manufacturer also vary in performance from component to component. However, each of the manufacturers' components must perform in accordance with the stated characteristics or specifications. As a consequence, designers must evaluate the characteristics of a sample set of components from each manufacturer to determine in terms of performance and cost, which manufacturer to select.
For most high frequency components manufacturers supply the designers with test fixtures so as to permit proper component testing. That is, the designers can test each of the components in an isolated fashion to measure some performance characteristics. For example, multiple attenuation levels are measured between the transmitter, antenna and receiver paths when evaluating duplexers required in cordless telephones. However, since the measurement is done in isolation, certain critical parameters may not correctly evaluate the performance in the actual complex device for which it is designed. For example, the prior art testing does not account for the affect of signal interference due to normal operating conditions. That is, the performance of the duplexer or any other component requires signal measurements while in a fully operational configuration. Accordingly, there is a need to provide a simple and effective apparatus and method which evaluates and characterizes the in-set performance of a component in the specified device.